USATF National Club Cross Country Championships

Gettin' muddy with it

The rain clouds which had been hovering for days over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park parted just in time for the start of the 2006 USATF National Club Cross Country Championships. Nearly 1,200 men and women from around the U.S. splashed through a course ankle-deep in mud, and splattered with puddles large enough to harbor one or two California sea lions. Who would have known this year’s meet logo of "MudStock ‘06 — Battle By the Bay" would prove so apropos?

Sponsored by the ASICS Aggie Running Club, this year’s meet attracted more than 60 clubs, drawn by prize money totaling $20,000, the largest in the event’s eight-year history. That’s more than triple the number who showed up for the inaugural edition in 1998. Since then, the meet has successfully promoted and fostered an exponential growth in club teams across the country. Due to its annually rotating venue around the United States, clubs have both a championship and a travel vacation to look forward to.

Prior to USATF’s decision to focus this meet on club development, there were actually two big national XC meets: the fall USATF Cross Country Championships, held around the Thanksgiving holiday, and the winter Cross Country Selection Trials held in February. The fall meet served as an appropriate culmination to many months’ hard work of romping through the fields and trails, while the winter meet, until 1993, acted as the vehicle for selecting the elite athletes who would comprise the U.S. teams sent to the World Cross Country Championships in March. Then, from 1994 to 1997, in light of the traditional fall training season and a preference for the milder, more tolerable late autumn weather over the harsh and bleak February conditions, the men decided to select their entire World Cross squad at the fall meet. The women, feeling that a selection race closer to the actual Worlds would provide a more accurate assessment of fitness, and therefore select better-prepared runners, decided to pick their team from a tapestry of winners at both the fall Championships and the winter Trials.

Finally, in 1998, a light bulb of consistency clicked on, and the entire Worlds selection process was moved to February. This way, while the February meet focuses solely on elite status, the fall’s USATF National Club Championships stays consistent with an autumnal U.S. harrier tradition, providing an excellent venue for a peak cross country championship race geared towards highly motivated clubs as well as a few unattached elites and local champions.

The women’s race consisted of 2K around a sandy trotting track followed by a tight about-face leading to a grassy 4K loop filled with hairpin turns and steep hills. Amy Hastings from Tempe, Arizona, proved most successful at slogging through the mud pits and leaping over two large logs on her way to win the women’s title in under 20 minutes. She stayed with the lead pack until the mile mark, then effortlessly pulled away to win by 16 seconds. With the finish line in sight at the 800 meters-to-go mark, an early finishing kick was thwarted by water-logged footing. A few of the women in a closely-knit lead pack fell in the final 300 meters, thereby drastically rearranging the results in the final minute of the race. The weather conditions which created such a pile-up prevented any one club from truly outshining another.